Remember that Nintendo Twilight Princess event? Well up until today, the press has only been able to talk about their experiences with the first 4 hours of the game, or about half of what we actually played.

The following article will not be for everyone. While my first story focused on the game's control scheme and graphics, this story will be a little more about some features that were previously confidential. I won't be SPOILING plot for anyone, but if you want a completely unadulterated play experience, go hide under a rock for a few weeks and don't hit the jump. To those who love unwrapping gifts a few days early...

Sumo wrestling was my biggest surprise in Twilight Princess. And no, I'm not making this up (that section comes later). Seriously, who would have predicted scrawny teenagish Link wrestling Sumo-style these huge Gorons? I dislike that he takes off his shirt (just doesn't feel like Zelda), but what are you gonna go? The minimal controls allow grabbing (a-button), punching (wiimote) and dodging (errr...maybe d-pad). Unlike the wolf's somewhat stiff, always-getting-me-in-trouble controls, I enjoyed the monodirectional movements in the sumo ring. It made sense, and I can still feel the controller vibrating as I collided with the Gorons.I didn't reach this boss of dungeon 2, which guarantees I will need to buy the game, because this upside-down sumo battle might be the greatest thing ever.

TP's graphics, while not always a technical masterpiece, convey a cinematic feel. It's not something you see much until after the first dungeon, probably because the plot doesn't start out with a great deal of intensity. I hoped that Nintendo would send better horseback riding combat shots, because they capture the in-game cinematic nature better than anything. But the above shots make the point well enough. Know that you will have to fight that guy above, on horseback, on a bridge - in a jousting without a joust matchup. I only mention it because that was my favorite part of the two days of playing at Nintendo by a longshot - a large "oh wow" moment that hints at the depth of gameplay to come.


Crawling through the second dungeon after the horse combat was a bit disappointing to my heart rate. I guess it's a matter of scale. You go from grandiose action, jumping obstacles on horseback while chasing down bad guys in a large environment, to using your brain in a much more confined space. I appreciate the varied flavors of gameplay, but looking back I realize how much Zelda games are changing, and how the dungeons won't get your blood pumping in the same way the outside environment will. Magnetic iron boots are cool, but by design not all that thrilling (though fun). And it's not necessarily that the dungeons are bad, it might be that the epic outside battles are that good. I don't mean any of this in a negative way - I just want to point out that the action and cognitive portions of the game are stretching further apart than they ever have before in the series, and what defines a game as a Zelda title will shift along with it.

Speculation/Potential SPOILER
When shadow/twilight villains are defeated, they open wormholes that can teleport you to other wormholes on the map. What's interesting about these wormholes is that their artistic style in no way matches the rest of TP. While they are black like the Twilight Realm, the edges are purposefully boxy and pixelated - intentionally rendered in a digital motif. Some of us talked about the possibility of a really lame "you're in the matrix" type of twist. Hopefully Link will not wake up, finding he's been used as a battery. Mark Wilson